Violets are blue,
Meiji are laughing,
And Lotte are too.
That’s my Valentine’s Day poem for you. Humbug!
This Saturday it will be Valentine’s Day. Millions of office workers in Japan will feel obliged to give chocolates to people they don’t particularly like, and who don’t particularly want them. And the “gift” forces the recipient to spend even more money a month later in return.
Or... February 14th is a fun day which helps people to maintain good relations with their co-workers and gives them an excuse to enjoy guilt free chocolate.
Take your pick.
The Saint Valentine’s Day traditions are a
little different in the UK than they are in Japan. We also exchange chocolate, flowers etc. But it is not just a day for women to give
presents to men. Men and women give
presents to each other. And more than
chocolate, people send each other cards with a Valentine’s message.
People often write short poetry, using a
very simple formula. You write a four
line poem to the one you love. The first
two lines are, “Roses are red, Violets are blue”. Then you fill in the last two lines, with the
last word of the fourth line rhyming with “blue”.
Here is a typical example:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Honey is sweet,
And so are you.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Honey is sweet,
And so are you.
It is also a day when people send messages
of love to people they are too shy to ask directly. They might send a card with a poem as above,
but then sign it, “from a secret admirer”, or “from your Valentine”. Then, hopefully, the recipient will guess who
has sent it and their relationship will blossom...
Saint Valentine is regarded as a real saint. But nobody is really sure any more who he was
in real life or why he is remembered.
There are at least three people who lived in the days of the Roman Empire
who might have inspired the festival. He
may have been a Christian who was killed for his beliefs. The festival was not originally connected
with romance.
The first time that this connection with
romance can be found is in the poetry of Geoffrey Chaucer, the 14th
Century English poet. In one poem, he
wrote, “For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day, when every bird comes to choose
his mate”.
Valentine’s Day has moved on a long way
since Geoffrey Chaucer’s day. Japanese confectionery
companies generate half of their annual sales in the time before
Valentine’s Day and White Day, when men are supposed to buy a return gift. I’d like to say that I prefer the purer
romance of the poetry. But I wrote this
blog just after having eaten a whiskey filled chocolate liqueur.
Come on, ladies. I like bitter chocolate. You’ve still got two days left!
Vocabulary:
a humbug – A kind of hard sweet, which used
to be popular in Britain.
Humbug! – Hypocrisy; nonsense. In Charles Dickens’ story, “A Christmas
Carol”, the main character Scrooge said “Humbug!” to show that he thought
Christmas was nonsense and not worth his time.
to be obliged to do something – To have a
duty to do something; to be bound by some reason, such as custom, to do
something.
to blossom – To produce flowers; to grow or
mature in a promising way.
a saint – For Christians, a saint is
someone celebrated as a holy man who was close to God. Many saints were chosen because they died
horrible deaths for their religion.
a mate – The sexual partner of an animal.confectionery – Sweets and chocolate.
to generate something – To produce or create something.
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